Various types of packaging structures have been, and are being employed for packaging and shipping perishable or fragile packageable objects. These have included the use of various kinds of packaging material intended to both space and protect the fragile or perishable objects within an outer box. In certain cases, these have comprised shredded or folded paper. In other cases, expanded plastic beads have been used to surround the fragile or perishable object or objects to be packaged within a box and in some cases, layers of convoluted or corrugated paperboard or cardboard have been employed as spacers for properly holding and spacing such fragile or perishable objects within a box. However, most of said prior art inner spacing and supporting material has been of a type capable of relative movement within a box when in packaging usage with respect to a fragile object. In other words, certain portions of said spacing material could move, relative to other portions and this does not lead to positive positioning of one or more inner fragile objects. Indeed, if such a fully packaged container using such relatively moveable prior art inner spacing material is placed in one position and vibrated, frequently it will be found upon opening the box, that because of relative mobility of certain portions of the prior art inner spacing material, a relatively heavy, but fragile inner packaged object may have worked out of its initial and intended position within the box and may actually be very near to, or even against, the inside surface of one of the walls of the box. This would, of course, make any subsequent impact very likely to damage the intended-to-be-protected fragile object, thus, defeating the whole purpose of such packaging. Another prior art problem has been the fact that such prior art spacing and supporting material has usually been extremely flammable, or combustible, thus, greatly increasing the possibility of an entire shipment of boxes packaging a large number of such fragile objects to go up in flames, if even only a small fire starts somewhere therein in any manner whatsoever. Also, certain of said prior art spacing and supporting materials (those made of loose plastic foam beads, pellets, or small balls) may produce, as a by-product of any such fire, an extremely toxic effluent gas which has been found to be very dangerous to any nearby person or animal.
Thus, it is clear that the provision of a relatively fixed-in-place inner spacing and supporting means which would not allow relative movement of portions thereof engaging a fragile object would be highly advantageous, because it would prevent the type of vibration-caused movement out of position of such a fragile object as that mentioned above as characteristic of certain prior art loose, relatively moveable spacing and filling materials. It is also clear that the provision of a packaging arrangement of the type mentioned immediately above, including built-in fire-preventing and/or fire-extinguishing means would be extremely advantageous, and it is precisely such a highly desirable and advantageous type of protective packaging which is provided by, and in the present invention and which has major advantages completely overcoming the above-mentioned prior art disadvantages and limitations, and all of which advantages flow from, and occur by, reason of the specific features of the invention described hereinafter.